Chronicles of the Last Days Chapter 15

Chapter 14

M

yril took her bundle of parchment and bottles of ink back to her room and set them down on a small table by the window. It should not be difficult for her to write the history of the regent of Tiadun. She knew most of the shape of Darna’s life. Some parts were missing, but Darna had never been reticent. Myril wondered what Darna would think of recording her story for the guild’s histories. She might not like it, just to be contrary – she wouldn’t be in the best of tempers, locked up all through the waning year in the temple’s heart of hearts.

She looked out her window, wrote a few lines, and looked out again. She listened. There were very few Cereans left in the harborside warehouses and taverns, now that the ambassadress had flown. Girizit remained at the palace, keeping mostly to his own chambers. He was also listening, as if he could also hear more than others did.

The days passed, the moon waned, and still she did not go to the temple, though she knew that she should. She’d gone once, on Midsummer morning, to tend to Iola, but she’d left as soon as she could. Her sketch of Darna’s story was in fragments. Why not write of the last ambassadress to the dragons instead? She worried about Iola. That was what finally drove her to leave her quiet haven again.

Anamat was a ghost of itself that season. Many had fled, and those who remained were uneasy. The city wore the facade of its usual autumnal rhythm, with the gathering-in of the harvest that filled the markets with the winter’s provisions, and the clearing-away of the detritus of the summer migrations and festival. Floodwaters eased back from the riverbanks as late summer brought dry skies until they were almost at their before-Midsummer levels, and the ripening crops drew up the few light showers of rain. The valley closed in on itself, but it was not the old peace of the waning year. It was anxious in its quiet, waiting for the next turning of the year. The scrappling who crouched on the corner by the temple’s side house was skinny and ragged and looking toward the harbor, not the temple, for a way forward.

Myril slipped into the side house. After the eerie quiet of the streets, the temple’s usual oppressive air seemed almost comforting. The Grandmother let her pass without comment. There were two open doors in the room above ground level, as if priestesses were staying there, where they never had before. Had all the life of the city gone into the temple, then? Myril put on her temple robes in the attic and stepped out into the narrow passage above the elders’ court. Crossing it, she slowed to listen to the voices coming from inside the Aralel’s study.

“I told him that it would be imprudent to send his own men to collect the texts in this season.”

“It is imprudent of him to be in our city in this season,” the Aralel said. “Even his fellow Cerean merchants know that much.”

“I’ve told you before: Girizit is no mere merchant,” Tiagasa said.

“And I suppose that means you’re not merely a merchant’s bed slave.”

Tiagasa’s breath hissed in.

“Don’t slap me,” the Aralel said.

“You should not call me such things, Your Holiness.”

“This is my domain, and you would do well to remember it. You are part of it too.”

“No, I belong to the governor’s palace. I merely visit you out of respect.”

“Respect? Is that what you call it? Even now, I think that your girl is taking treasures from the peresi, taking bribes for passage across to slavery.”

“It’s not slavery. Besides, I hear that you only plan to let them drown.”

“If you ever had any wisdom, it seems you’ve lost it. I ask that you keep your girl from coming here again.”

“Would you drive me away, too?”

“If you come only to steal and not to take counsel from your elders,” the Aralel said. “I have other matters to attend to now.”

Myril had stopped halfway across the garden to listen, and people had noticed her standing there. The elders didn’t seem to mind, but Tiagasa or her handmaid would be another matter. She hurried on through the peresi’s garden.

Old Geta sat in the little gatehouse at the entrance to Iola’s realm. Her eyelids sagged and her chin nodded down onto her chest. She looked very old, but she looked up as Myril approached, and brightened visibly when she recognized her.

“You’re a sight for old eyes,” Geta said. “I’m sure the regent will want to see you.” She winked or blinked something out of her eye as she opened the gate and let Myril in, closing it swiftly behind her.

Myril had never been in the ambassadress’s garden during the waning year before, but she’d glimpsed it through the gate many times. When the ambassadress was under the earth, it was usually untended and in disarray, brown in the summer droughts with weeds running over the walkways. This year was different. She could see fresh scratches in the dirt, and some of the too-lush growth was bound up with twine. Geta looked too old and frail to have done the work herself.

She found Darna in a corner, pruning fading blossoms from a rosebush.

“Gardening. That’s a princely occupation,” Myril said. Darna had never liked gardening very much before.

“It’s that or needlework,” Darna grumbled, “or talking to Iola. This way, I don’t have to listen to her.”

Myril felt a shiver. She’d heard enough to reassure herself that Iola was inside, but hadn’t focused on her.

“I should go in to see her.”

“Better you than me,” Darna said.

Myril left Darna with her pruning knife, snapping twigs and muttering to herself as she made the garden even more beautiful than it had been before. Strange that there were roses there that only bloomed when the ambassadress was supposed to be under the earth.

Iola was sitting up, but her sleeping nook had the air of a sickbed about it and her skin was deathly pale.

“Myril? I’m so glad you came. Come sit by me.” Her voice was as distant and hollow as her eyes. The sense of the dragons’ power still hung around her like the lingering smoke around a cookfire after it had been put out. Myril didn’t think that Iola would put her into trance in her sickly condition, but she was cautious anyway. She found a stool and pulled it up opposite Iola. The table at her bedside was littered with empty cups and crumbled cloths. Myril tidied them as she spoke.

“I’m glad that you survived Midsummer,” she began. “Did the girl who went in your robes survive too?”

“It was Eppie,” Iola said resentfully. “She comes here every day.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t come to gloat.”

“You’ll see for yourself. She usually comes at midday with the excuse that she’s carrying messages for the regent, but she doesn’t leave me alone.”

“Have you been eating?”

Iola rolled her eyes, as if tired of the question. “Of course I eat.” She frowned and looked away, as if simply too tired to bother saying anything more.

“You wish that you were down there,” Myril said.

Iola nodded mutely and her frown turned into a scowl. She trembled as she looked up. “Of course! Where else would I be? I’m not supposed to be here. I’d rather be dead.”

Outside, she could hear Darna wiping off the blade of her pruning knife. There was a disturbance at the gate to the garden, too.

“I would speak with the regent of Tiadun,” someone said. It was Tiagasa again.

“You may send her a message,” Geta said. “She is indisposed today.”

“I am sorry to hear she’s not well. I must speak to her on matters of state.”

“She will send word when she wishes to see you,” Geta said.

“I am the mistress of the governor’s palace.”

“Yes, young one, I’ve heard that. Still, the regent is indisposed today.” Geta did not unlock the gate.

Myril reached out to lay a soothing hand on Iola’s thin arm, but the air around it felt so cold that she pulled back. She wondered if Iola would care that Tiagasa was outside. She probably wouldn’t. She didn’t seem to care about much of anything.

“You should take a bath,” Myril said. “It would warm you.”

Iola shook her head. “No. It’s no good anymore. They’re not in it anymore. It’s cold.”

Darna came in, brushing dirt off of her hands. “It’s true,” she said. “It was warm enough on Midsummer morning, but by the time we woke up the next day, it was as cold as the canal.”

Myril looked between the two of them. They did smell less washed than usual. “The baths out in the city are the same as ever,” she said. “I haven’t heard of anything different in the other baths. Could I see?”

“Why not?” Darna said. “I’ll show you.”

“Do you mind?”

Iola shook her head. “But I won’t go with you,” she said. “I’m going back to sleep.” She lay down and pulled a blanket over her head to feign sleep, but Myril could hear by her breathing that she was still awake, and angry. Well, better anger than lethargy.

Darna was tense and restless, but at least she wasn’t fading away as Iola seemed to be. “I usually sit in here when I’m not in the garden,” she said as she led Myril through the arched doorway into the baths. “It’s cold, but I never have a cramp when my feet are in the water.” She sat down on the tiles, pulled up her robe, and dropped her feet into the bath. It was not steaming. It smelled a little moldy. Myril crouched beside Darna but decided not to touch the water.

“I think it might do this every year,” Darna said. “Why would the dragons heat the baths if their ambassadress isn’t here?”

“I suppose,” Myril said. “You don’t think it’s odd?”

“No more than it ever has been. Nothing else has changed in here.”

“Except for the garden, now that you’re tending it.”

Darna shrugged. On the whole, she was in much better condition than Iola. Her cramps continued and her belly was starting to look more rounded. It looked as if Darna was simply pregnant, but Myril couldn’t shake off the sense that it wasn’t right, that it wasn’t ordinary. The only movement she’d felt in it was a distant sense of heat, but it was too early to feel anything more than that, yet. Soon, though, they would be feeling movement, if it was what it looked like.

When Myril returned to her room, she took her assignment from the guildmaster, the pieces of Darna’s story, and put them in a box underneath the bed. She would return to it only if Darna survived Midwinter and whatever was in her belly.

#

Through the whole waning year, Thorat remained on guard duty in the palace. He observed the governor, his mistress, and their remaining foreign guests. In addition to Girizit, there were the usual Enomaean horse-handlers and a few Cerean armsmen and scholars. Those mostly kept to themselves except when they visited the scriptorium to take texts or went down to the harborside brothel or to visit the merchants there. Girizit stayed to his chamber and visited Tiagasa. Together, they puzzled over the texts that the temple had sent up before Midsummer, trying in vain to unravel the secrets Tiagasa had never bothered to learn before.

Minstrels still carried news and rumors from the provinces beyond Anamat. The guardsmen of Galamun and Getedun combined their forces to escort the common armsmen who’d come from Tiadun back to their home province, and also drove the remaining Cereans Calar had brought back to their ships there. They set sail to rejoin the duke of the Southern Reaches and perhaps to shore up his rebellion against the Cerean king, but the autumn storms came early. Rumors flew across the seas. Fishermen said the storm had swamped the Cerean ships, and that one of them was lost outright, with all the men aboard, while the other two were badly damaged. It was dangerous to sail on the dragons’ waters out of season.

At the second full moon after Midsummer, Eppie went out to meet Sunna at the border shrine. She returned to the training hall with the news that, apart from Tiadun and Slaradun, the dragon gates in the southern provinces were all where they’d been before. She would go on to make the longer circuit of the northern provinces. Eppie said wistfully that Sunna looked happier than she’d ever been.

One day not long after that, Thorat went to visit Myril. He arrived late in the afternoon, just as she was returning from the temple.

“It’s dustier than usual in here,” Thorat commented.

Myril looked around. “I suppose it is. I’ve been distracted.”

“Your sign’s still down. Are people still coming for your cures?”

Myril shook her head and sighed. “I have too much to do for Darna, and Iola, too. I can’t do anything for all of this.” She made a sweeping motion, indicating the world beyond her walls.

“What of Iola?”

Myril froze. “Did you know that she didn’t fly?”

Thorat shook his head. “I knew that people were trying to stop her. No one told me they’d succeeded.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything. I thought that Eppie or the Enatel might have told you. Well, you know now.”

“Is she well?”

“She’s alive. There’s that much. You’d better not try to see her, not before Midwinter.”

“What about your guild, then? The governor isn’t sending us down there for texts anymore. Giri’s only studying the ones we brought before Midsummer, and maybe a few that Tiagasa got from the temple.”

“I don’t know anything about the guild these days,” Myril said, still looking out the window. “I was supposed to write a history of Darna, the Scrappling Prince, but I can’t. She might die.”

“She won’t die,” Thorat said. “She hasn’t yet.”

“He said to bring it back when I’d written for him. I’ve gone, but he won’t see me. He’s keeping something from me.”

Myril had always been both secretive and trustworthy, as far as Thorat could tell. The Chief Chronicler seemed to have a high opinion of her. “What would he hide from you?”

“Maybe it’s a who, not a what,” Myril said, as if an idea had suddenly occurred to her. She turned back to face him. “There’s an Enomaean at the guild. I could smell his perfume and horses. Somehow, the Chronicler has gotten mixed up with him. I don’t like it. He’s never been so secretive before.”

“An Enomaean?” Thorat thought aloud. “Could it be Nolerin?”

“Who’s that?”

“He’s the one who brought Darna over the mountains from Slaradun,” Thorat said. “I liked him, after I got used to him, and Darna trusted him. He prayed every day at sunrise to their eagle god, but I never saw him make sacrifices, and he never said anything against the dragons.”

“Darna trusted him? Well, then maybe it’s all right, but it just seems wrong. Everything seems wrong. The temple is feeding three times as many as it ever has before. The kitchens stink and clatter day and night. There aren’t so many scrapplings, but I see grown villagers camping in the streets some nights. Everything is out of season.”

Thorat couldn’t disagree with that. He left Myril’s room a short while later with a message for Raina, asking her to go to help Myril look at Darna’s belly. Walking up the street back to the training hall, he felt less sanguine than before the visit, despite the news that Iola was safe on the surface of the earth. Why had no one told him?

#

That waning year was the longest season of Iola’s life. She felt the wrongness of it with every breath, until her absence from the dragons had poisoned her as much as it could and every bone in her body was weak with it, and the only thing left to do was to breathe the ordinary air of the surface of the earth again, to eat the common food of the temple, and to sit up a little more.

She settled into a loose rhythm. She slept nearly as much as Darna did, but she didn’t bathe, didn’t want to be reminded that the dragons had withdrawn even from her baths. The other baths were still warm, she heard. She spent long hours contemplating the cold, dusty statue of Anara over her old offering place. She vowed never to lie on that altar again. She’d failed it. She could scarcely stand to look at it.

After the second full moon after Midsummer had come and gone, when Eppie had come to tell them that the dragons’ gates still glowed in most of the southern provinces, she stirred herself to do a little more. Late in the night, well after dark and when Darna was asleep, she climbed the tower to look out over the city. She could see a long way from up there, even if she couldn’t see Anara. Soon, she would have to leave the protective circle of her high white walls. She didn’t want to be lost when she did. She circled the narrow ledge around the tower, looking down at the city streets, trying to memorize the ways they turned and twisted, then looking beyond them to the roads leading out of the city, into the valley, into the mountains, and beyond. Perhaps she would ask Thorat to come with her, if he came to her again, but she wouldn’t meet him as a priestess, not anymore.

As the nights grew noticeably longer than the days, she began to eat more of the food they brought from the kitchens, where before she’d only picked at the dry crumbs. She asked for wine instead of tea sometimes and went out into the garden more and more. After all, it was no colder there than in the indoor part of her prison. For the first time, her quarters felt like a cage, which they never had before. She wished that she had wings to fly again, or even just scales. Darna had scales. Darna had never loved the dragons as she had. Or had she? Darna hadn’t been to that other realm, hadn’t lived there, and yet the dragons had touched her more deeply than Iola had thought possible, more deeply than she would have been able to withstand. She’d never realized before how far from the dragons she really was.

There had been times that the dragons had touched her, face to face. In the early days, Anara had almost drained the life out of her one night on the tower. Darna, of all people, had rescued her. She’d healed quickly, just as she’d always healed after her journeys to that other realm, those journeys where she’d lived in a different kind of prison, a gilded alcove at the edge of the dragons’ realm, a place from which she could see them but never really be among them. They would come one at a time to lay their heads in her lap, to receive their offerings and to warm her better than any man ever could. Yes, she’d touched the dragons, but they didn’t live inside her, not as they lived inside Darna.

Darna and Iola spent as much time as they could apart, but they still had to share a table when Eppie or Geta brought their meals. They gave each other common courtesy, at least. What else could they do? Time would pass and the temple would fall. After that lay nothing but the windblown wilderness beyond her impossibly perfect walls, the temple’s future ruins.

#

Eppie carried the tray to Darna and Iola for the hundredth time – no, it had been more times than that. She’d lost count moons before. It was Midwinter Eve, late in the day, and she didn’t like the temple any more than she had at Midsummer. She would be glad when this farce of playing a provincial priestess was over. Being one of the dragons’ ladies, even for a small part of the day, made her feel caged in. She didn’t know how Darna could stand it. Iola and the other priestesses were different, far better suited to their walled-in life.

No one in the temple ever asked who she was or where she was going. They accepted her as one of their own without question. After all, she was young and female, so it didn’t seem to occur to them that she could be anything other than a priestess, unless she were just seeking refuge, and that amounted to nearly the same thing.

The farmers brought a portion of their harvests to the back gates, and whatever came in went straight to the kitchens to feed the throngs of priestesses, with none set aside for the waxing year, despite the usual seasonal bounty. Eppie heard that there were petitioners, too, but she avoided learning anything more about them by skirting through the peresi’s courtyard as quickly as possible.

There were so many priestesses in the temple that it seemed they’d given up keeping track of who was there. She wondered if even the treasurers knew who came and went. The librarian didn’t seem to notice that some priestesses never returned the scrolls they borrowed. The Chronicler had stopped sending scrolls to Garren’s shop for the Defenders to guard, but Myril had begun to bring Darna and Iola a few texts from the temple library, obscure ones, valuable ones, ones that apparently would not be missed and would be safe in Iola’s realm for a while. Most of the time, neither Darna nor Iola bothered to read them, too far gone in whatever agonies their bodies were suffering. After the texts had sat there for a few days, Eppie would take them out on the empty food tray and carry them up to the training hall, where she piled them next to the others. It wasn’t a big pile, but secrets didn’t take up much space.

At least Iola was looking better, Eppie reflected as Geta let her in that day. Darna was pacing in the garden, as she often did. When she wasn’t in the garden, she just sat in the baths, letting the water dampen whatever fire was inside her. Except for her belly, she looked the same as she had at Midsummer, but her efforts to be polite were strained and short, when she bothered at all. She ate as if it were an onerous chore, even when old Geta sent over cakes that were so light and sweet that Eppie salivated just thinking of them.

“Food’s here,” Eppie announced. She set it down on a garden bench near Darna. “How’s the Most Blessed One?”

“Don’t know,” Darna grumbled. She walked past the tray and lifted the plate cover, took out a piece of bread, and kept pacing.

“Why aren’t you in the bath?”

“Don’t know,” Darna said. She looked up at the sky. “Too empty in there.”

The garden felt neglected again. “Is Iola awake?” Eppie asked.

Darna gestured to the tower. “She went up there a while ago. I’m not waiting for her.”

Eppie sighed. “The Aralel told me to make sure that she eats.”

Darna shrugged. “Well, I’m hungry now, and all of this is supposed to be for me and you, isn’t it?”

Eppie wondered if she should wait for Iola, but when Iola went up to the tower, there was no telling when she would come down. She moved the tray to a table out of sight of the gate, closer to the base of the tower, where Iola might see it. She poured out two small cups of wine and drank one herself, handing the other to Darna.

“Thanks,” Darna grunted. She took the cup and raised it to her lips, then suddenly her whole body convulsed. Wine and cup went flying. Darna clutched her belly and began to fall to the ground.

Eppie dropped her own wine just in time to catch Darna before she hit the flagstones. “Sit,” she commanded as she dragged Darna to the bench. She pushed the tray aside. Darna collapsed into a sitting position.

“Worse?”

Darna nodded. She convulsed, then arched her back and screamed.

By the fourth time Darna cried out, her agony didn’t even sound human. A trio of elder priestesses stormed the gate. They circled around Darna, holding her arms, stopping her from falling or hitting her head against the stone table. Geta was there. Good. The Aralel. Maybe not so good. Another kitchen priestess.

Darna said that she was going to faint. They lifted her up and carried her inside.

“Where’s Iola?” The Aralel whispered.

“In the tower,” Eppie said. It was the wine that had set it off, maybe, or else it was simply the fact that the Midwinter Eve sun was setting.

“Go get Myril. Raina. Get Raina,” Darna said between convulsions. “Bring them!”

#